Backcountry Fishing Reports

Got out for a day today again finally.  Had to cancel 4 trips in the last week due to weather, a couple days I would’ve opted to not go (wind, rain, and chilly), but a couple of them I definitely would’ve gone.  Only problem was semi-local customers coming from miami and such, makes it hard because they don’t want to show up at the dock at 7 AM in the morning to make the game time decision, and a lot of the times the weather man is wrong on his forecasts ahead of time.  But we made it out today again and it was one of those days where you likely would’ve cancelled looking at the forecast, but it ended up being a pretty nice day.  Just a light misty drizzle for the ride out and then the rain cleared, and the winds swung around northwest and actually weren’t as bad as predicted.  I had Andrew, Mono, and Rob.  We had a steady pick of fish all day, catching a few in many spots and a three spots catching a half dozen or so in.  Really stayed in fish almost all day I don’t think we went more than 20 minutes without catching something.  Not a whole lot of big ones but we did catch slot reds.  We did find a monster snook though for Andrew he got a nice 38 incher, fish of a lifetime would’ve made a great christmas present to put up on the wall with a mount from Gray Taxidermy!  Anyways I’m off for christmas then booked up through the holidays and then going skiing in early January.  But stay tuned for some more reports and if you want to go fishing in January it’s a great time to come with the colder weather we get, expect more big snook to show up!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Went out for a days fun fishing with my wife Elizabeth and our friends John and Andrea.  Forecast didn’t look great it was suppose to be a lot of rain between the cold fronts here.  It was misty on the ride into the backcountry, but never got poured on and after a couple hours it was fairly dry and overcast all day.  Nice and cool not bad at all really.  We found some big redfish early on, it was slick calm and just perfect condition for a spot I like.  We caught about a half dozen all 15-18 lb fish!  We tried a few other spots, not much on ’em we had a black drum get eaten by a bull shark and lost something big maybe a cobia that ran out a lot of line.  We hit the creeks but the tide was ripping, and didn’t catch a whole lot until it slow down near the end of our day.  But the last hour was very productive catching a quite a few redfish and snook, one baby tarpon, a sheepshead, and a few other odds and ends.  Backcountry slammin’!  On the way home we hit a couple more big reds and got one that was 20 lbs or so!  Fun day for sure!  Now we have the front here and it’s going to be blowing 25-30 mph for the next few days.  But we’re going to try and get out most of ’em but fishing might be tough.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Fun day in the backcountry with Brad Buehrle.  We had some good wind out of the southeast and things had warmed up again after the minor front we had a couple of days ago.  Fishing got a little better though from what I’d heard.  We got in the creeks but the tide wasn’t really good early, high falling tide with ripping current.  We got where it looked OK out of the ripping currents and picked at a few snook to start.  No more than 1 or 2 off any spot but we ended up picking away.  After a couple hours the tide got lower and slowed down, and then the bite picked up.  We got into some good redfish action and some black drum too.  Brad also caught a nice small tarpon, well got him boatside at least before he jumped off.  Also got a nice size snook about an 8 lber as well as a juvenile goliath.  Best fishing was when the tide bottomed out and then started coming in.  Today the tides were overall higher, a couple days ago I know they got super low where you would’ve gotten stuck in some areas.  But we have more weather on the way with a couple more cold fronts.  Winter time is here, fishing should get better as things cool off and the weather stabilizes, but after tomorrow it looks like you should expect some heavy wind for a few days.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Fun day with Dad, bean, and our long time friend Alan. From the pictures you wouldn’t believe me if I said it was a tough day 😆 but it kinda was! Hard winds, full moon, and water warmed up again and was very muddy. We got lucky and found a few nice reds in one area and getting one massive bull of 25 lbs or so! After that we didn’t catch much for the next couple hours as we waited for the tide to change. Very muddy everywhere and lots of catfish! Finally the tide turned and we got into a bite of fish in another area. Got a few black drums, two of which were big (for here) 20 and 25 lbs, a couple more nice reds, and a few snook as well though the biggest one we lost at the boat as he got wrapped up. We also found a nice snook in a other area and then got about a 25 lb Cobia which was a treat! His lucky day – we let him go. After that we had quite a few jacks and some lane snappers in a couple spots and got broke off by a couple Goliath groupers. But that was really about our day! Quality over quantity for sure. I know fishing was pretty tough for a few other guys I talked to, definitely not easy right now in the Backcountry with the falling tide, warmer weather, negative tides, and wind making it muddy. May have to mix it up a little more tomorrow morning. Need some more cold weather I think!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well a little something different the last few days.  I had Chris and Paul visiting, along with Steve and another Chris, who were doing some tripletail research.  I’d been in contact with Steve for a few months, and they were trying to get data on tripletail in our area.  They were wanting to catch fish and implant acoustic tags which ping and are picked up by transmitters spread throughout the gulf and areas all throughout the US.  They are wanting to know migration patterns etc…  We booked 4 days originally but fishing was very good so we got it done in 3 days and they cancelled the fourth!  It was pretty cool, day 1 we saw a ton of fish and they got most of their tags out that first day.  Day 2 we didn’t see near as many but they got what they needed out and we saved the last couple tags for day 3 when we were filming as we are going to do a very cool YouTube show on this.  They also got a bunch of genetic data and put out standard spaghetti tags.  If you catch a fish with the double tag it will say please release as these have the acoustic  tags implanted internally.  Day 2 we also caught a big 15+ lb tripletail, biggest I’ve seen in a while so that was pretty cool.  Stay tuned and we should have the YouTube video up in a few more days or early next week at the latest.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing